There’s a reason the Scandinavian welfare states are still the envy of many across the world. Even decades into a neoliberal project to reform them, Scandinavia sports relatively high income equality, large, tax-financed welfare programs, powerful unions, and relatively low unemployment rates.

Neoliberal textbooks tell us that the only way to societal prosperity is through low tax rates, deregulated business, and cut-throat competitive labor markets. Yet despite failing to meet the metrics of the Anglo-American variety of capitalism, Scandinavian countries stubbornly continue to prosper, and regularly come out on top of the global indexes of happiness and quality of life.

It is no surprise, therefore, to find neoliberals and conservatives devoting considerable intellectual energy to delegitimizing the “Nordic Model” of public welfare.